Associate Education Minister Craig Foss has slated the Education Ministry for plans to sack nine of the staff dealing with the Novopay debacle once the troubled teachers’ payroll system is working well.

“I am utterly flabbergasted by this decision,” Mr Foss said.

“Any plan to cut payroll staff numbers is totally out of sync with what the ministry is trying to achieve with the Novopay rollout. It’s pretty clear that the ministry’s payroll team needs more resources, not fewer.”

It is rare, but sometimes necessary, for a Minister to directly criticise their own Department or Ministry. This is definitely one of those times. Staffing issues are the sole preserve of the CEO, or Secretary of Education in this case. But there is an obligation to have a no surprises policy and it is clear that the decision to reduce the number of payroll staff was not run via the Minister. It is almost incomprehensible that the Ministry did not think to do so, and calls into question their overall level of competence.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2012 at 3:00 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
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35 Responses to “The Ministry of Education”

Associate Education Minister Craig Foss has slated the Education Ministry for plans to sack nine of the staff dealing with the Novopay debacle once the troubled teachers’ payroll system is working well.

Seems Mr Foss is a fan of keeping a dog but doing the barking himself.

The story mentions staffing is not in Mr Foss’ sphere of influence – maybe he would be better in the other lot, requiring as he does unnecessary staffing for the sake of it.

“Yes – we can’t possibly have our children getting a decent education.”

One that would enable them to make their own mind up on global warming for example?

Or whether the TOW really is any kind of “founding document”???

The MOE is just a conduit where centralised left wing activists and their useful idiot buddies feed every dumbarsed country splitting piece of Marxist crap under the sun into the minds of our impressionable young.

Whatever objectives exist at the Ministry, actual education is right at the bottom of their list.

It is interesting that the figure bandied about is 90,000 on the Novopay payroll. Lets say there are 1 million school age children, thats one staff member for 11 children. Being generous even if it was 60,000 full time equivalent staff thats one per 17 children. If class sizes average 25 kids (being generous again) that means 30% of the salaries go to non-teaching staff.

I can still picture old Charlie Wadham, squatting on the window sill at the old alma mater, in his old checked suit, looking a lot like Doctor Zeus, with a fag hanging out of his gob, saying “Johnboy, you will never amount to much”!

Foss could and should have said this behind closed doors and got the Ministry to issue a quiet release into the mid-week news cycle to the effect that subsequent analysis of the staffing requirements necessitated blah blah.

But no.

He had to do it this way, instead.

That’s kinda stooopid in a “play into the enemies hands” kinda stoopid way to play a given set of cards, isn’t it.

nasska
I don’t know anything about that case apart from the article to which you linked. It seems that Parker was widely respected in the community – sadly it is not uncommon for child abusers to be in positions of trust. Many people sided with him; including one who was the NZEI delegate. That’s a little different from ‘the scum teachers’ union shutting down an investigation of his activities’ don’t ya think?

I also only know what I’ve read & it is little more than what was in the article. It does seem telling although when the principal is quoted as saying, “while a representative of teachers’ union NZEI picked Parker’s side and stuck to it.”.

Surely in a case like this even a unionist might pause to think of what could happen to the kids if they got it wrong.

Maybe nasska. It sounds to me like there were quite a few on Parker’s side. Maybe the NZEI delegate was his best friend. I don’t know. Unions sometimes cop it in the neck for representing bad guys – is it a bit like lawyers? I was a delegate a long time ago and had to help out a guy who was pretty much hated by everyone in the office. He was strange, and I didn’t enjoy dealing with him, but at least he got treated a bit more fairly.

One of the people shown on TV who hadn’t been paid was a groundsmen.
If No(vo)pay is responsible for paying everyone employed by a school then your calculation would be off (I don’t know if they are – just surmising from the above mentioned groundsman).

Schools have many people who work for them who aren’t teachers – teacher aides, canteen lady, cleaners, office ladies, admin staff etc.

The novopay debacle stinks and if the truth ever comes out I’m sure there will be politicians or their mates involved financially. Need a god investigative reporter but it may be too close to the national party for whaloil.

Anyone else detect a new secretary in a certain department being thrown to the wolves?
I can’t recall seeing previous secretaries in that role being compelled to front to the media and make uncomfortable statements over this scale of problem.